Visitors to Confess 'Eco-Sins' to Priest at Greenpeace Fair in England

LONDON (RNS) Visitors to East Anglia's annual Greenpeace fair in England on Sunday will be able to confess their sins against the environment to a Catholic priest.

But the Rev. Antony Sutch, who will be hearing people's eco-confessions, said it would be a question of secular rather than sacramental confession.

"I am going along because I am someone conscious of the need to look at our consumption and greed and what this is doing to the world God gave us to live on," he said.

The fair is taking place just outside Bungay, 100 miles northeast of London, and is the biggest fund-raising event organized by East Anglia members of Greenpeace, the environmental organization founded in 1971. They hope to raise more than $30,000. This year the sound system at one music stage will be powered by a member of the audience riding an exercise bicycle.

A True Christian

To be a true Christian,
Venerate the Lord of the Meeting Rivers,
The Silent Sage of the Shakyas,
The Lion of Judah,
The Lover of the Gopis.

Whether in a Jewish synagogue,
A Muslim masjid,
A Buddhist temple,
A Hindu mandir,
A Christian church --
All one altar of the one Lord of the Meeting Rivers.

Be free from pleasure and pain,
gain and loss,
fame and infamy,
praise and blame.

Don't worry.
You can't become Happy.
You can only Be Happy.

Pledge of Biological Allegiance

I pledge allegiance to evolution
of the biological diversity on earth,
and to the theistic guidance from which it evolved,
one DNA under God, cellularly divisible,
with allopatric speciation and adenine triphosphate for all.

Lineage

I come from a long line
of shudras,
vaishyas,
kshatriyas,
and brahmanas
And even mlecchas!
My great-great-grand dad born a shudra,
and died a vaishya
while great-grand, a vaishya all his life.
His son born a vaishya,
and became a brahmana
until his passing,
but not before his son adopted
the vaishya line, until
I came along,
and entered
my mother's lineage.
Now I have siblings and cousins,
shudras,
vaishyas,
kshatriyas,
brahmanas,
mlecchas, even --
all sprung from the same body,
the body
of the Great
Embodied
Person,
the Auspicious,
the Truth-Person,
the Sat-Purusha.
To speak of superiority
or inferiority
is as silly as to speak of
chocolate
or
vanilla.

Paulo Coelho Dances with Angels

[Beliefnet:]In your work you often point to contradictions between the church’s rules and the Bible’s teachings. Do you have anything to say about a hypocrisy there?


[Paul Coelho:]I only can say about my religion and being a Catholic. I am a Catholic because I choose to be a Catholic. And then I go to the Mass because I choose. It is out of my free will. But then, when sometimes I see the human touch [in] the sacred rituals, you say, oh, my God, that’s not exactly what Jesus said. Jesus was much more open and--he was full of joy of living. Because he was the one who was always traveling, surrounded by women, drinking wine. You know, having fantastic conversations with his disciples.

In my church, now more than before, they are going against the natural flow of humankind. This new pope is a disaster, to put it plainly…. I’m not going to defend a pope that is against, for example, condoms. I’m not going to defend a pope that thinks that we still are in the medieval times and that the Catholic faith is the only one to be right. And then you ask, why do you consider to be Catholic if you don’t agree with this pope and many priests and bishops? I say because, well, my religion is more important than the men that are trying to guide it.

But the ritual of the Mass and the words of Christ--well, we’ll survive this pope. The Mass is a mystery. And for me, it is the most perfect ritual.

Here I Am

All night, a man called “Allah”
Until his lips were bleeding.
Then the Devil said, “Hey! Mr Gullible!
How comes you’ve been calling all night
And never once heard Allah say, “Here, I am”?
You call out so earnestly and, in reply, what?
I’ll tell you what. Nothing!”

The man suddenly felt empty and abandoned.
Depressed, he threw himself on the ground
And fell into a deep sleep.
In a dream, he met Abraham, who asked,
“Why are you regretting praising Allah?”

The man said, “ I called and called
But Allah never replied, “Here I am.”
Abraham explained, “Allah has said,
“Your calling my name is My reply.
Your longing for Me is My message to you.
All your attempts to reach Me
Are in reality My attempts to reach you.
Your fear and love are a noose to catch Me.
In the silence surrounding every call of “Allah”
Waits a thousand replies of “Here I am.”

-- Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi (Rumi)